


Picaro Redux

by RowanWinterlace



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, F/M, Government Conspiracy, House-Elf Abuse (Harry Potter), International Confederation of Wizards (Harry Potter), M/M, Mentor/Protégé, Multi, Slytherin
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-05
Updated: 2020-11-10
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:55:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27401578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RowanWinterlace/pseuds/RowanWinterlace
Summary: The result of an accident...As Tom Riddle Jr tries and fails to fully revive himself in the moments he has left, after the Diary is stabbed, something else walks away from the scene. A being made up of everything available, cursed with proving she is both more than the sum of her parts and that she deserves to live...
Relationships: Original Female Character/Multi
Kudos: 3





	1. Chapter 1

The date: May 29th, 1993.

The location: The Chamber of Secrets, the fabled location where Salazar Slytherin left his great horror.

The situation: Tom Riddle Jr, a shade borne from the dark diary he had kept in his teen years, the boy who would grow to become the Dark Lord Voldemort was SCREWED.

The split second between the Basilisk fang punching through the cover and piercing the pages of the cursed diary (the one that both leeched life and power from the unconscious Ginevra Weasley and subsequently gave form to the spirit of Tom Riddle) and the subsequent, all-encompassing agony that ripped through him was one that came with heavy dread. Both lasting an eternity but gone far sooner than he’d have ever liked.

The diary, unbeknownst to all who was aware of its existence, was charmed to near invulnerability; his subsequent Horcruxes made in its image. Only the darkest, most dangerous of substances capable of destroying the object that bound this shard of his soul to the world of the living.

One of those substances, which he was reminded of with a sense of rising dread when Harry Potter’s pale, shaking fingers tightly gripped a discarded fang of Slytherin’s monster, was Basilisk venom. Riddle made brutally aware of the actual dismantlement of his being as soon as the venom entered the equation, systematically annihilating every and all of the magics he’d left within the books all those years ago.

He had no time to intervene.

All of it was happening too fast (his addled mind focussed on the pain and subsequent fear of death) for the prodigious shard of the Dark Lord to be to do anything to save himself. No curses, only cursing; expletives and screaming rolling past his lips as he was quickly torn asunder. Yet, even if he had been in a state of mind conducive to logical thought, there was no dark spell or esoteric ritual he could have possibly performed that would have saved him in time.

So, he raged, doing nothing to save himself as he disappeared.

Except… he WAS doing something…

Magic is marvellous. A force of its own with a mind both separate yet intwined with that of its wielder. Less a tool, more an entity gleefully offering assistance to its host.

So, whilst Tom Riddle fell to pieces, active thoughts focussed on his hatred of his enemy. Subconsciously, he had a different focus:  
 _'I don’t want to die.'_

He wasn’t original here. And, on paper, his magic responding to that subconscious wish and hunting for a method to prolong his life… that wasn’t original either.

Sourcing magic from all surrounding sources, dragging it into him in those moment? Rare, but both Harry and Ginny were doing so as well. Even as Tom was slipping the land of the living and his control Ginny loosened, she still teetered on the edge. Thus, her magic drunk in everything available to keep her heart pumping and brain active.

Harry was poisoned, he knew this both consciously and subconsciously. And though, in a way, his magic knew there was nothing it could do, itself still empowered his immune system to fight the bodies invader. A valiant final stand that, in the face of the venom that was eating Tom’s diary, gave Harry minutes rather than seconds…

This is where Tom’s magic diverged from their norm. All due to circumstance…

**First.**

> Though his control was loosening, and Ginny’s magic was now actively fighting him off (as it both saw his magic as a threat to her safety and a foe that could NOW be defeated) there was still an active string of power that linked the Dark Lord to his victim. Before that stream ran dry, Tom’s magic sunk its 'claws' in deep and dragged off as much as it could to its host body.

**Second.**

> Despite his exposure to the diary being miniscule in comparison to Ginny, Harry had used the diary. Though far from the open sluice gate that was the road between Tom and Ginny, a connection had been cultivated between Harry’s magic and Tom’s.
> 
> In that final moment, Tom’s lashed out and began taking some for the first time. Battering at the already distracted force that was already failing to save its host, siphoning off as much as it could in those last moments.

**Third.**

> Tom wasn’t alive.
> 
> Granted he wasn’t dead either. An entity on the border of both realms, looking to step quite firmly onto the side of the living. Here, Tom’s goal of returning to his body was what the magic was siphoned towards. Harry Potter’s, Ginevra Weasley’s and the rapidly diminishing dregs of whatever Tom Riddle had left; Tom’s magic was trying to quickly, inefficiently and desperately reform his body before the death of the Horcrux would mean the death of him.

It didn’t work.

To spoil the ending, it monumentally failed.

Tom faded with a final shriek.

Fawkes saved Harry and Ginny, the diary and the children escorted from the depths of the castle back into the safe custody of its teachers and the Chamber sealed shut behind them.

Later, Albus Dumbledore would (correctly) mark the diary as inert and surreptitiously begin his investigations into what it was and if there was more of them…

But that was only AN end. Because Tom’s magic wasn’t finished.

Unbeknownst to everyone, despite ALL odds. Barring any kind of hope, or justice or even reason itself… Tom Riddle’s magic received outside help.

Needing not just enough to tip it over the edge and complete the ritual, Tom’s magic required specific magic. Magic that could create, could heal and could pour life into a human form; in this moment it needed something miraculous.

And in a ludicrous event that occurred at JUST the right time, Fawkes re-entered the Chamber.

Though his magic had no connection to Tom’s, Tom’s didn’t try to leverage power from a pre-existing link. It attacked the bird and took everything it could…

Wounded (but alive) Fawkes healed Harry, gathered up the children and fled. The beautiful creature the only one aware of the invisible ball of power gestating in the spot where Tom had disappeared.

* * *

This was not a memory, this was a fact she knew intrinsically. A fact she knew from the moment she… started.

Though she didn't quite know when that was, one moment she wasn't a thing, next she was there. A being laying on the wet floor of the Chamber of Secrets with a near perfect knowledge of her birth.

Children allegedly only form explicit memories from two years old and onwards: those first couple of years lost to them. Humans never accurately remembering the first years they spent on the planet, for they are just entirely unable to form and preserve those memories at the time.

And though she was different, she wouldn’t consider all of that as a memory. It was more information, she couldn’t the pain Tom felt only that he was hurting. Couldn’t relate with the cold, heavy feeling that permeated Ginny’s body, only that it was present. Barely comprehending the grim satisfaction Harry felt at his pyrrhic victory against Tom Riddle, as they were his feelings, not hers.

Her first memories were of the cold floor of the chamber. Torches still burning, casting long flickering shadows over the flooded chamber floor.

Cold, wet and dark: her first memories were of this horrible place. The corpse of the Basilisk not far from her nude form. Her back, buttocks and legs drenched from the water puddle she had awoken in, her stomach growling and long hair sticking to her back and hips.

Cold and wet, she could rectify that with a wave of a wand, but she didn’t have one. Absently, she wondered if she could steal one, but a shiver told her that once she got up and out of this Chamber, the focus should be on stealing clothes and a towel. Easier things to pilfer than an item that every witch or wizard (worth their salt at least) kept on them at all times.

Her first sound words were in Parseltongue, opening the Chamber from the inside and next summoning the stairwell that would lead her out into the castle.

The moonlight cast silver beams in long corridors, the only other light than the more torch populated castle proper. She slipped quickly from shadow to shadow, moving fast so self-consciousness and shame wouldn’t get her caught…

Only stopping in the Entrance Hall, slipping into an alcove to safely plan her next steps. The lights were on, but no one was home; the empty expanse of the room ominous in its lack of cover and over abundance of light.

She would likely never know how long it took for the cocktail of magic to spit her out onto the Chamber floor, she surmised it was still the same evening as when Tom and the Basilisk were defeated.

Eventually she heard the scuffling feet and the grumbling of an aging man, two sets of memories reviling the noise as tell-tale signs of Argus Filch, the castle’s caretaker.

Situated behind a pillar, she was able to monitor his march from the Great Hall and up towards the moving staircase. Another shiver followed a blast of cold air to her left, first notifying her of the direction of the exit to the castle and second reminding her of her state of undress.

She breathed a sigh of relief when he could no longer be seen. A feeling of intense nausea disappearing once the risk of Filch being the first one to see her starkers had vanished.

But when she stepped out of her hiding place and made for the slightly open door, she heard a shuffle of feet and the sound of his grumbling grow closer.

Fear and mortification, the first strong set of feelings she’d ever felt. Followed by panic as she slipped out of the castle and BOLTED.

Though her speed didn’t strike her as anomalous (the girl tearing across the dark grass towards her target) her stamina did strike her as odd. Able to look on how she felt little strain in her muscles at her dead sprint and now shortness of breath when she arrived, the five-to-ten-minute walk from the castle to the Quidditch pitch made in a fraction of the time.

The doors were unlocked, she was almost tempted to go on an explore to steal a broom, but with the light of the moon the only illumination she had of the stadium’s inky black exterior, she thought better of it. Instead moving to the wall and inching through the dark to her destination.

When she made it, she almost thanked God for how close the Gryffindor locker rooms were to the entrance. Though the outside light was dim and long shadows gave the room a very different feeling. Gone was the warm feelings of camaraderie that Harry’s memories associated with this room, here it was ominous.

She rushed to the first locker she saw and winced when the only thing in it was Quidditch robes. The second one having what she needed: a Hogwarts uniform. As memory served it was Katie Bell’s too, the responsible upperclassmen keeping a spare set of clothes to change into after a match,

“Sorry Katie.” Her first words in English as she stole her stuff…

There were undergarments, her cheeks warmed at the sight of them. Guiltily taking the striped panties and finding them tight and uncomfortable, absently wondering if stealing herself up to the Gryffindor Tower and stealing Ginny’s would be a viable strategy. She sighed, knowing it wouldn’t be, as hers would be even smaller than Katie’s. She was courteous enough to leave the bra, satisfied with her spare skirt, blouse and offering a quiet apology. These fit better, though the top two buttons had to remain undone.

The locker door, at a soft shove, slammed shut far louder than she wanted it to. The girl bolting before anyone could show up and query the noise, only seeing that it was unnecessary a few minutes later when she saw Filch at the door of the castle and Hagrid disappearing into the Forbidden Forest.

She stood on a rock and scowled as it punctured the sole of her feet. Hopping on her other foot the young woman cursed: Merlin, Morgana, God and that _selfish bitch_ Katie Bell for not having a pair of shoes in her locker. Only continuing onwards when she’d gotten all the dramatics out of her system.

She felt better, her first smile stretching on her face as she committed to escaping the Hogwarts grounds in… most of stolen uniform.

She blessed Ginny’s dogged persistence as she sprinted, her eyes finding the hole she needed long before she made it to the roots of Whomping Willow. Grateful at least that Ginny had stolen a peak at her brothers map of the castle, even if she didn’t realise exactly what the boys had discovered lay underneath the roots of the Whomping Willow…

A memory of Ford Anglia barrelling into the easily angered tree (the boy driving nearly thrown over the dashboard and through the windscreen) a grim reminder that she:

  * **_Still didn’t have a wand._**



and,

  * **_Was about to do something incredibly dangerous and stupid._**



It reacted far later than she expected, the girl a few feet from the hole when the branches attacked. Faster than even she’d expected, she was struck across the face by leaf laden bark, slicing a thin line in alabaster skin and leaving the area raised and red when inspected later. She was knocked from her feet and off course, but muscle memory from the youngest Seeker in a century in a body a foot bigger (and far stronger) had her up again and lunging for the gap. She tumbled in ungracefully but laughed all the way to Hogsmeade when her head stopped spinning and her heart rate died down.

She offered only an absent thought towards the Shrieking Shack as she left, more focussed on the fact that it was a Saturday night if it was still the 29th of May.

Which meant… yes! The doors of the Three Broomsticks were still open, light and drunkards stumbling out into the mild evening. She tore across the cobbles, bare feet slapping on the ground until she found a grizzled looking man swaying on his own,

“Excuse me?” She made sure her voice was meek but loud enough to be heard. He turned and his eyes very quickly fell to her chest with a delighted glint in his soft, brown eyes, “Can you help me please?”

She was ALMOST grateful that Katie’s clothes didn’t quite fit as she led him into the dark. His hands were adventurous and hers weren’t idle either. The core was unknown, but the wood of the wand was a familiar yew. His coin purse a bit sparse, but, from one of Harry’s memories, more than enough for her purposes.

“Lumos.” A small bulb of silvery white light reluctantly appeared on the tip of the pilfered wand, its owner nursing a stinging cheek as he scrambled away none the wiser. She got a better response by the mighty bang of a purple triple-decker arriving; Stan Shunpike arrived with a flamboyant announcement of the service.

She was quick to offer her location and the required payment, not splurging on a hot chocolate or a bed even though both sounded like absolute heaven to her still freezing form. When she sat down and the bus lurched into action, she tried a warming charm with the wand and burnt her thighs when forcing her magic through. Resisting the urge to throw it away, she scowled, rubbing her bare leg and turning to stare at the blurs past the window.

In the dark glass she got her first view of herself.

Her skin was pale, almost ghostly white. Her hair was a gradient from dark to crimson (a far cry from even Ginny’s flaming red mane), transitioning gently to red from black, or incredibly dark brown, roots. The cheeks, and the bridge of her nose, on her heart shaped face were dotted with soft brown freckles. Freckles that on closer inspections were present on her chest and shoulders. In that moment, she noticed a far from subtle leer from Stan Shunpike

He gave some pickup line when their eyes met. Something about dragons and nests and… she wasn’t listening, she really wasn’t listening. He may have been conveying some interesting dragon fact and she assumed because his eyes weren’t on hers.

 _‘Am I going to have to put up with this all the time?’_ Her own eyes falling to her chest, they didn’t seem too impressive, _‘It’s only cause Katie’s so… skinny? There’s no polite way to think this is there…’_

She just decided to blame the small clothes and the creepy weirdo (that somehow managed to get employed on this thing), backed up by Harry’s… less than flattering memory of the nosy young man.

He did ask for her name though, that she DID hear. Blinking in panic she decided to ignore him. Better to be rude than admit she was some creature made up of the magic (with memories of a trio of different people and a phoenix) and didn’t have a name yet…

He frowned, but got the message, only seeming a little put out when he called their arrival at the Leaky Cauldron a few minutes later. He gave it another attempt as she got off, but for the life of her she didn’t know what he said, choosing to hop off and make a beeline for the door of the inn instead.

More important things on the nameless girl’s mind than the nosy, pervy, bus conductor.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The result of an accident...  
> As Tom Riddle Jr tries and fails to fully revive himself in the moments he has left, after the Diary is stabbed, something else walks away from the scene. A being made up of everything available, cursed with proving she is both more than the sum of her parts and that she deserves to live...

Tulip Gaunt was not someone Albus Dumbledore intended on discovering. A truly fascinating young woman he had stumbled upon whilst searching for… something else.

His surprise with how their paths crossed (as well as her existence in of itself) stemmed mostly from the fact that, when directed to look into the Chamber of Secrets itself, she wasn’t the individual he had been expecting to find...

She is a young woman, looking to be in her mid-to-late teens, of average height and slim build for her suspected age group. Her most striking features being:

Her hair, a long mane that fell to her hips, that started of as black at the roots before slowly transitioning to a deep crimson halfway to the tips.

The smattering of freckles on her skin, the dark brown dusting on her face (and exposed chest and shoulders) standing out starkly against the pale, seemingly sun-deprived, skin.

With the most striking features being her eyes. Identical in shape, shade and the piercing intensity of their gaze to one other person alive. The one who, in turn, inheriting those eyes from his mother.

Shortly after Harry had handed the cursed diary of Tom Riddle to him, inert and severely damaged, Fawkes issued his first slew of warnings. Had Dumbledore reponded to them, who knows how history would have known the years to come. However Albus Dumbledore calmed his familiar with a gentle hand and instead discovered that his long time friend was injured.

Not so stricken that he needed to burn, but his mobility and power had taken a toll. So, as Fawkes cawed and screeched, Albus (embarrassingly in hindsight) misinterpreted his warning as pain and discomfort. Thus, ever the kindly friend, he administered some potions and charms to his phoenix familiar that effectively sedated the bird for a time.

Later, to his surprise and chagrin, he was quite angrily assaulted when Fawkes awakened later. Grogginess replaced by a vicious sense of urgency, stunning the Headmaster (deep into researching the remaining wisps of black, evil lingering on the diary) when he was deposited in the dark, dank underbelly of the castles most carefully hidden location.

His attention was quickly drawn away from the ancient wonder of magical architecture (and even the slowly rotting corpse of the mighty basilisk his student had bested) as he IMMEDIATELY realised, with dawning horror that Fawkes smugly endorsed, EXACTLY what he could sense. The frayed edges of magic hanging in the air telling a story that turned his stomach,

“He succeeded, didn’t he?” Fawkes nodded, but Dumbledore’s sub-vocalised question had been directed to no one in particular. His wand having weaved a path of glittering fairy lights through the stale air, each pulsing and glowing with differing degrees of intensity. Their patterns forming a message only he, the castor, could determine; the lights indicating the remains of a ritual in the air.

To Dumbledore's trained eye, its intention was clear.

And for the next seventy two hours, from when Dumbledore discovered the remnants until he sat besides an injured and glaring teenager, did the Hogwarts Headmaster believe his worst fears were a reality:  
  
Lord Voldemort was alive and walking amongst them once more…

* * *

Tulip. A pretty flower name, in tribute to Harry's mother.

It was a start.

A start to an identity she was piecing together as she worked through a bag of pork scratchings on the floor of a room in the Leaky Cauldron.

She hadn’t decided on a last name yet, but when she’d booked a room at the Leaky Cauldron last night, Tulip had been what she meekly offered to the sympathetic man behind the bar. The girl still riding the wave of smug satisfaction at the foresight she’d had to punch herself several times in the face before she’d “staggered” into the Leaky Cauldron.

Turns out, on closer inspection, the sparse coin purse she’d finessed from the handsy drunkard at the Leaky Cauldron had enough for a few nights at the inn. But a bedraggled, barefoot teenager (teary eyed and with quickly developing bruises on her face) blubbering her way through asking for a room was enough to pull on the heart strings of Tom the innkeeper. Thus, she didn’t have to pay for her room at all.

Granted, the room she was sequestered away in was no penthouse suite: the mirror had a few choice remarks about the pallor of her skin and there was a veritable colony of spiders in the cupboard under the sink; she would definitely leave a hefty tip once she had that kind of money to throw around.

But that involved getting more Galleons, the plan being to first: get some before she committed to paying anything at all to her generous host.

She was more than happy to try a few… unscrupulous methods to get herself some gold. Though she knew better than to prey on the inebriated magicals again. As when she’d looked at her self-inflicted injury in the mirror (and reflected on the grim echoes of that mans hands on her breasts and hips) she realised how easily she got off the night before, not looking to take that sort of risk again until she was in a better position.

Part of that better position meant she needed a proper identity; _Tulip_ was all she had.

_‘No, that’s a lie’_ She shook her head, scratching the back of her head as she crunched on the last of the bag. Only then clocking that her first meal alive was a bag thrown her way by a pitying innkeeper, _‘Yeah, that was a lie. I’ve decided I’m fifteen.’_

When she’d looked herself up and down properly in the bathroom mirror, she’d been left wondering how old she should pretend to be. Clearly in mid to late teens and needing to act as such. Unfortunately, as Harry and Ginny were yet to reach thirteen, her only point of reference was a charismatic teenage psychopath, suffering from megalomania and having no regard for human life.

And he was a guy, not exactly helpful for _‘ blending in’_.

Her mind returned to gold, eyes flicking to that coin purse of hers. It was now empty, but only because she’d poured the contents out onto the bed to count-up what she was dealing with.

Sixteen Galleons and eight Knuts; not terrible, but not impressive. Especially since that came with a wand too, even if it now sat stubbornly inert on the bedside table.

_‘I need a wand of my own._ ’ A thought accompanied by a pout. Early morning wand work had successfully conjured her some shoes and socks, had left the shirt a size too large when resizing it and had inflicted a nasty burn on her stomach when a Warming Charm had been utilised.

She’d keep a hold of the… finicky… wand for as long as it took to get another one. But she wouldn’t be attempting another theft of one unless she turned desperate, now seeing why she needed one ACTUALLY bonded to her.

> _Ginny’s wand had taken a good five or six minutes, Ollivander bustling around the blushing girl to find a wand that could handle her ‘volatile spirit’._
> 
> _Tom’s was a longer process, Ollivander (though he was a much younger, brighter eyed man) had been filled with a mighty amount of trepidation. His visible reluctance growing with every failed wand until he places the Yew and Phoenix feather item in the smiling boy’s hands. It released a burst of bright white and beautiful music. The wandmaker had taken it from the boy afterwards and only begrudgingly handed it back over…_
> 
> _And though Harry’s had been treated more as a challenge than a threat, he was still subject to searing curiosity (and a healthy level of wariness) when the Dark Lord’s brother wand had eventually found its way into his possession._

Tulip sighed, wondering if she’d be just as difficult a client to the great wandmaker as her “parents” had been.

Crossed legged on the floor, Tulip paused.

_‘Parents, huh?’_ She cupped her chin, propping up her leg so she could lean her elbow against her knee, humming thoughtfully as she pondered, _‘Progenitors may be more accurate…’_

She snickered, flaring a set of pearly whites to the empty room as she grinned,

_‘But it’s funnier to have a twelve-year-old mommy and daddy. As well as an evil, undead donor dad.’_

She giggled, an evil giggle of course, somewhat cruel in her amusement; Tulip absently imagining the horrified confusion on all three of their faces if they ever learned of her existence.

Only to be left with the sobering thought that she could NEVER let Voldemort know exactly what she was. His reaction not something she could predict, but it would NOT be anything good or beneficial.

The nightmarish images her imagination gifted her with was enough to put her mind back on task. Tulip now wondering if it was even a smart idea to head to Ollivanders for a wand.

Granted, she needed one that would respond to her (the same way her ‘parents’ did to them) as her pilfered one was a hair above useless. But she wasn’t confident that any cover story she concocted for the purchase of a wand, whilst not looking eleven, would hold up under scrutiny.

**KNOCK, KNOCK!**

A disturbance that had Tulip snapping her head to the doorway. Of course, she wasn’t expecting anyone, thus she rolled to her feet and snatched up the semi-useless wand before she called,

“Come in?” Initially cursing herself for sounding so small and unsure, only to praise her genius when she saw who timidly popped his head in,

“Hi there, luv. You alright?”

The innkeeper of the Leaky Cauldron was hardly a looker, quite bald with a myriad of wrinkles and slighty protruding veins present to show his advancing years. But despite this, Tulip thought Tom's smile was warm and pretty. With his open body language and chronically genial voice, she could see why he was so popular as an innkeeper,

“I’m fine thank you, sir. Thank you for letting me stay.” Offering a somewhat clumsy curtsy,  
He waved her off with another of his warm grins. It stunned Tulip that not only did both Ginny and Harry hold fond feelings towards the man, but even Tom (though he still thought the man beneath his notice) had some positive memories of the man from a short stint of a stay at the Cauldron when both Tom’s were much younger,

“You a Hogwarts kid?” A surprisingly sharp, near accusing, question that broke through Tulip’s reverie. Instigating a cold feeling inside of her.

_‘I need to play this carefully.’_ A final thought as a pre-determined story rushed to the forefront of her mind as Tulip let her lips move,

“Y-Yeah, I’m in Gryffindor.” Rolling past her lips carefully, her entire body sculpted into a visage of panic right on cue as she lunged forth to desperately grab his arm, “You can’t tell anyone I’m here! Professor McGonagall will kill me for sneaking out again, and mum’ll throw me out if she finds out what I was doing.”

The lie was built on a shred of truth, that being her panic. Committing to the lie of being a Hogwarts student assuaged certain suspicions, but this was a lie that took a single owl to disprove. She didn’t exist anywhere, let alone on the student rolls of Hogwarts school, and it would not take much to find that out.

_‘Which may involve Dumbledore, and who knows what would happen if he finds out what I am?!’_

“Wh-What were you doing, luv?” Tom’s surprised expression dissolved into gentle commiseration. Tulip taking the few seconds she would have (had this upcoming lie been genuine) to fidget in reluctance and mortification, “It’s okay. I promise no matter what happens you’re safe and I’m not going to tell anyone you’re here.”  
Inwardly, the girl raised a brow, taking her hands from his sleeves to fold and fidget in her lap,

“Y-You promise?” AN unnecessary question, as even if he didn’t mean it of course he would nod. She unleased a shuddering exhale, forming the words in her head and delivering them with the same shaky tone, bordering on tears throughout, “M-My family are really… poor. I… I was just trying to help out and send some money back for my mum.”

The waterworks started here, and through a quick glance Tulip could all but see the heartstrings she was pulling on Tom’s pained but sympathetic face, “But the guy got too rough, I ran out as soon as I could and just jumped on the Knight Bus to get away. I…”

She descended into sobs, Tom dropping to his knees and settling a gentle hand on her shoulder and whispered gentle words to her.

She felt sick.

Pulling from Tom Riddle’s masterful talent and experience for the manipulation of others would undoubtedly gain her both support and sympathy. But taking advantage of a clearly kind hearted man, willing to help her out even with what she’d implied she was doing for money... sickening,

_‘I can’t stop, I’m in it now. But I WILL make it up to you for lying Tom, I promise.’_

“Th-Thank you, not many people would just take me in.” This was genuine, as was the hug she delivered. Throwing arms around his neck and, following instincts she felt compelled to follow, laying a soft, grateful kiss to the man’s cheek. When she pulled back he looked flustered; Tom pulling at the collar of his shirt with a soft pink to his cheeks and a loopy grin on his lips,  
“Hey! Everyone has rough spots. Believe me, I can understand that sometimes… you need to do what you have to do to get by. Though I really think you should reconsider how you’re… getting by.”

His expression was both pained and desperate now, meaning it was Tulip’s turn to have her heart clench in her chest. Sincere concern radiating from him like a wave of heat, pinning her in place as he spoke again,

“Look, that sort of… work, is fraught with danger. And it can be a really hard path to walk away from if you get in too deep.” His tone oscillated between stern and gentle, his eyes sticking her in place with a piercing quality, “I can’t say I’ve got the answer to your troubles, but I’ll let you stay here a while so you can get back onto your feet and back up to school.”

Her lips felt numb and Tulip did not trust her throat to produce a sound even close to human speech. So numbly she nodded, met with a firm single nod by the man before her.

“You look a bit peaky, luv. You stay put and I’ll get you something warm to eat, as those are definitely not enough for a growing girl.” Tom turned to leave the room after a casual gesture towards the empty pack of pork scratchings still lying on the floor,  
“Ah! Ill pay-” Blurted out before the girl turned to find the coin purse, stopped by a sharp,

“No, you don’t, young lady!” Quickly followed by a rueful, “I can afford to let you have a meal on the house. You look like you’ve been through enough, luv. Rest up and let me treat you, I haven’t had a girl to take care of since my niece.”

The soft nuance of pain at that last sentence killed any retorts, Tom offering a slight smirk of victory as he exited the room and tottered away.

She had all sorts of plans in her head, things that needed doing and essentials she’d need to collect. But instead of blitzing out of the room to take on the world, Tulip parked herself on the slightly lumpy bed and drew her knees up to her chest.

A divine smelling bowl of oxtail soup, with a fluffy wedge of bread, was delivered by a soft-spoken House Elf in a periwinkle frock. Tulip almost ruining the meal with the salty tears that dripped down her bright, smiling face.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The result of an accident...  
> As Tom Riddle Jr tries and fails to fully revive himself in the moments he has left, after the Diary is stabbed, something else walks away from the scene. A being made up of everything available, cursed with proving she is both more than the sum of her parts and that she deserves to live...

Purple robes with a smattering of white stars, a matching hat, pointed black shoes and a pair of tasteful lime green and lilac striped socks. Even is his choice of attire didn't draw eyes to him, the man towering above nearly all he ever met meant Albus Dumbledore cut a figure that was impossible to ignore. Even in his somewhat low seat, that the man refused to transfigure into a more comfortable sitting space so as to remain modest and out of the way, he was subject to many a veiled, sideways glance from a room of awe filled and intimidated law enforcers.

He sat straight backed on the side lines of the busy Auror office, reading a small memo in his lap as red robed wizards and witches bustled and strode between the maze of desks and booths before him.

It was an amusing (yet heart-warming) delight for Albus to sit regally in a chair off to the side, quietly observing a slew of his former students. His attention drawn to one of his younger graduates as she drew an equal air of irritation and fondness from her surrounding colleagues in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement,

"I don't usually go for girls, but _DAMN_." Nymphadora Tonks, gesticulating wildly with her hands as she beamed, an equally young-looking man (whom Dumbledore, regrettably, did not recognise), working his way through a bowl of nuts as he amusedly followed along with her, "Can you believe she's single?!"

"Did you notice her skin though, really pale." The man drawled, soft brown eyes narrowing a smidge as he hummed out, "Maybe she's a vampire and just doesn't date meals?"  
Tonks guffawed at her smirking colleague, causing a few sharp head turns before she was ignored again,

"Looking like that? I don't even care." She snickered before she stiffened, her hair turned a mousy brown and visibly wilted, "You don't think I came on too strong, right?"

Dumbledore chuckled to himself, not the only one in the office bemused at the suddenly panicked look on the young Auror's face. The drama of young love something Albus adored being a spectator to, the awkward steps and missteps of the duo stumbling around their feelings something forever heat-warming and amusing.

But he wasn't here to watch that, he was here for Alastor Moody, a scarred and disfigured Auror who hobbled his way to him with the aide of a large staff,

"Albus." The gruff greeting met with a smile, scars and wrinkles stretching and pulling at the remaining unblemished skin of the mans face. The sight an unfortunate one.

But Albus only absently noticed that, only seeing the face of his good friend,

"It is good to see you, Alastor. I believe this focus on mentoring has done you good." Dumbledore grinned whilst his listener scoffed, smile turning to a friendly scowl, "Hogwarts would greatly benefit from a man of your experience."  
The surprisingly rueful grin on the older man's face was met with a somewhat amused glower,

"Whilst that bloody jinx is in place? Not a chance." Answering the unasked question, met with a soft sigh of disappointment,

"Oh Alastor, you should never listen to those urban rumours. They exist to breed paranoia."  
"This ain't paranoia, Albus. It's CONSTANT VIGILANCE."

Though the sudden change in volume that accompanied his bark of a reply made many a nearby Auror jump, Dumbledore just nodded sagely,

"Very well, Alastor."

"I assume you had something else to talk about. Had to cancel everything once that bird of yours showed up to speak." Moody's knarled fingers drummed a quiet drumbeat into his staff, both of his eyes (even the false one that had spun about quickly since he'd entered the room) found themselves locked on Dumbledore's.

Blinking in surprise at seeing the elder man almost age a decade before his eyes. Those twinkling blues steely and cold,

"Yes… I'm afraid this is a conversation that could do without the audience."

"Why would you meet me here, then?" A quirked brow was met with a subtly amused smile,  
"I'm afraid that the portraits of Hogwarts are known to gossip, the esteemed headmasters of my office are unfortunately no exemption from this stereotype."

A nod and jerk of the head pointed the two men to an unused office, the two languidly crossing the bustling space in silence. Tonks's groan was the last thing Albus heard before he directed his attention to the man hobbling towards him (absently amused and relieved that Miss Tonks seemed to have settled well into the Auror Department).

Seemingly following Dumbledore's string of attention, Moody sighed good-naturedly,

"Bloody pain, she is." A twisted, massacre of a smile on the Auror legends face, "All but bullied everyone into accepting her once she got out of basic."

A chuckle rippled out of Albus,  
"Oh the liveliness of youth." Soft and quietly amused,  
"She's one of my best too." A pained sigh, "Spit it out, Dumbledore. What's going on."

"I fear the Dark Lord Voldemort has returned."

Blunt, a severe expression on his face as the colour drained from his listeners, a slew of back and forth questions leading to an abridged explanation from Albus Dumbledore of the situation as he knew it.

"Well… the old guard'll need to be called." There wasn't any inflection to the voice that could possibly have suggested fear or apprehension. Moody's electric-blue eye flicking out towards the office as he straightened his back,  
"I will make them aware as I go, but I am following a trail as it stands." Dumbledore nodded sagely, an even graver expression on his face as his frown deepened,

"A trail?"  
"The resurrection ritual that Voldemort utilised has a faint link to him. I am many steps behind, but he is within my sights."

"Then we could-"

"All I require of you is to be prepared in Diagon Alley should the confrontation… not conclude as I hope it will…" The Headmaster declaring with a fire in his voice, "He is currently sequestered in Gringott's. If I don't move now, I doubt I will catch him again."

Argument came, hissed and exasperated, washing against the steady calm of Dumbledore like waves to a cliff face. Moody left to through his hands up to the air and near bellow,

"What would you have me do, Albus?" Nostrils flared and his good eye wide, "Go to Bones's office and tell her that-"

"Tell her nothing." Lightning quick was his interruption, a quirked brow met the closest anyone had heard Dumbledore to panic, "If we time this correctly, we will only have to explain ourselves once we have him in custody."

Alastor Moody was utterly bewildered, such a desperate stance so far removed from the man he knew Dumbledore to be.

"Are you really trying to keep Voldemort's return under wraps?!"  
"As far as we are aware, his followers don't even know he is back. We can capture him without them being any the wiser."

Silence.

Quickly broken by Dumbledore once more,

"Whatever needs to be done; strangle the flow of customers to Gringotts and make sure there are Aurors nearby. Keep that lobby as clear of civilians as humanely possible, Alastor."

"You want me to actually stop people from entering the bank? You've lost it now, Dumbledore. The goblins won't stand it!" Moody all but shouted, a subtle flick of the wand from the Headmaster (mid-sentence) ensured no one outside of the room heard it, "It'll be seen as a declaration of war!"

"It WILL be war if we don't." A higher octave reached as Dumbledore raised his voice for the first time. Drawing up to his full height as a mighty, yet imploring, mask settled on is wizened features, "We must choose between the risk of conflict and the certainty of another massacre. At this moment, Voldemort is as weak as he will ever be, it is our responsibility that he does not attain anything more than the nothing he has."

Moody's lips thinned as his knuckles turned white as he harshly gripped his staff. Otherwise impassive, almost defiant, as he stared down the one-man Voldemort feared.

Of course, he caved.

"I need time." A shaky reply, met with a headshake and soft frown,  
"I'm afraid there isn't any." Grave but firm, "Voldemort is attempting to access his family vaults, no doubt to gain the capital he needs to go into hiding. We need to act now."

The unspoken,

' _Or we'll lose him.'_ Hung in the air between the old, war-beaten men. Moody wearing the scars of his fight against the dark across his battered body. Dumbledore's only visible in the dark look he levelled in that moment.

Both grimly aware worse would come if they failed…

* * *

The redheaded spawn of the Dark Lord, his enemy and his victim second in line to a teller in Gringotts Bank. Shoes shuffling against the dark marble floor as she fidgeted in place, fiddling with her new clothes (a pale blue blouse and black jeans) and appreciating her splendorous surroundings as she came to terms with the fact that each Galleon was worth five pounds sterling…

' _Ouch.'_ Tulip winced as she took in the multitude of sour faced goblins and their ever-dwindling customer base. Though she eventually shrugged it off, _'Seeing as their coins are apparently two grams of pure gold, and these goblins are selling them for a fiver?! I guess it's a bargain…'_

Yeah, it meant the five grand she'd accumulated wouldn't be worth as much when she converted it over. But it was still a sizeable amount to start off with, more than enough for her needs as she waited for her ACTUAL money maker to bear fruit.

Oh, how did a little waif of a girl (who didn't exist seventy-two hours ago) make five grand in a day?

Let's just say race results and games of chance are so much easier to bet on with Divination. And when you can be hitting a new bookies in a new city seconds after the previous one (bless Tom Riddle for figuring out how to Apparate three years before he legally could), conning the system and fleecing out shops was the next best thing to child's play.

A darling loophole in the Ministries tax laws. As what self-respecting witch would decide to make her fortune in the muggle world (where they had a distinct advantage over their non-magical counterparts) instead of working hard to attain riches in the magical one?

Apparently, not many. Or, not enough for the Ministry to realise it was a viable exploit.

That fact confirmed when Tulip punched 62442 into an innocuous looking payphone, clutched her pretty visitors pass to her chest and found herself directed to the public records of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, by a bright-eyed rookie Auror with a hot-pink mohawk.

The woman was helpful, even when Tulip bluntly told her she was trying not to commit tax fraud. The clumsy Auror, having tripped and stumbled her way through the entire Auror office as they went, stunningly quick in picking out all the sentences Tulip needed. Seeming just as baffled as Tulip in discovering the Ministry did not condone the use of Divination on games of chance in the Muggle world.

In hindsight (when remembering how quickly she tore through those papers for her) Tulip wondered if she was showing off, especially with how she blushed and grinned in victory when Tulip admitted how impressed she was.

She told her to owl, as Tulip was leaving.

She was considering it.

"Next!" A sharp sound, wiping away the image of defined biceps accentuated by a tight, red uniform. Tulip shuffling forward both grateful and irritated at the goblin for the distraction, "Name?"

"Tulip."  
"Surname?"

She sighed,

"…that's part of the reason why I'm here." The goblin quirked a brow as he levelled a withering look at her, "I'm looking to see if I can do a family blood test. Then open an account."

Derision. Tulip held firm under the eyeroll and scowl of the goblin on the other side of the desk, doubtlessly used to the request. It was a similar reaction that Tom Riddle received when he demanded one himself, though his wasn't a case of,

' _Am I actually a member of the family I think I am?'_

And more,

' _I MUST be related to someone special!'_

"Hmph, any family in particular?"  
"The Gaunt's." Not a beat missed,

That seemed to give him pause, thin brows rising up on his pale forehead as beady eyes widened somewhat. Tulip surmising that it was because the Gaunt's were a household with no material wealth, despite its links to Slytherin. One where, currently, no one would _really_ be trying to scam a relation to,

"Please hold." A sharp order prior to the goblin slipping from his chair and through a door located behind the string of teller's desks.

In retrospect, it should have been predictable that the goblin would return with a snake…

She didn't know the breed (though the small greenish serpent could have been an adder); its eyes seemed unfocused and pained and Tulip could hear some expletive laden grumbling as it observed its surroundings.

The goblin shook the cage and it turn to snap at him,

"Look over here, pleassse." Tulip offered gently, the irate snake glared at her,

 _"Where am I?"_ The voice was decidedly feminine. A low, sibilant sentence laced with fear and loathing,

 _"The lobby of Gringottsss bank."_  
 _"That meansss nothing to me, human."_ It reared up as much as it could in its confined space, seemingly trying to be imperious with its aloof tone and change of position,  
 _"Thatsss not my problem."_ Tulip shrugged as she spoke, her eyes moving beyond the serpent to the bemused goblin holding its cage,

"We will have the testing room ready shortly, please move to the waiting room." The goblins dark eyes were wide but intrigued, a stubby finger pointing off to the left. Following his direction, Tulip was lead across the lobby and through an oak side door into a small room with squat, leather seating pressed up against the wall.

When she got herself comfortable, her new purse shrugged from its place on her shoulder and placed in the space next to her, Tulip first thought it was a bit off that no one else was in here with her.

As she took some comfort in gently rolling the yew wand up and down her lap, the door creaked open. Instinctively the girl looked up, her blood turning to ice in her veins as her heart leapt into her throat.

All but a silhouette in the light of the lobby (a place where she could hear the word, "EVACUATION!" over and over) was the one man she did NOT want to see. Eyes finding hers so quickly it couldn't be argued that he wasn't looking for her.

Albus Dumbledore stood thunderous in the doorway, no grandfatherly twinkle in his eyes.

Only cold fury.


End file.
